Posted on 11/24/2010 6:36:40 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Michelle Obama's White House is 'not Camelot'
By: Amie Parnes and Kendra Marr November 24, 2010 04:28 AM EST
She has glamorized kitchen gardening, spotlighted childhood obesity and invited thousands of students, many of them minorities, to official White House events.
Expectations were high for a different kind of first lady, and in many ways Michelle Obama has lived up to them, maintaining the kind of high public profile that was widely anticipated when she and her husband came to Washington.
At the same time she has been a victim of those expectations, disappointing some in Washington who hoped she would be a more expansive social presence, and eliciting the familiar criticism of recent first ladies that she keeps too much to herself. (See: Michelle Obama: No longer a 'caricature')
In a new book on the presidency, “Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House,” Richard Wolffe writes that because of the constant pressure of the past 22 months the president's circle of friends and confidants “shrank rather than expanded.”
Interviews with the spouses of administration officials and members of Congress as well as Washington social observers suggest that the same thing is true of his wife as well.
In many ways, Michelle Obama has emulated the president’s approach, leaning on a close-knit group of friends and confidants from Chicago to help shape her agenda and find her way in a community that she has been wary of joining.
“There has been no attempt to reach out to people they don’t see as their people,” said the wife of a senior administration official, who doesn’t have Chicago ties. “They don’t reach out to even people in the administration who aren’t from their inner circle.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
At the same time she has been a victim of those expectations, disappointing some in Washington who hoped she would be a more expansive social presence
That ended the day she said she had never been proud of her country before. I think the party elites pulled her aside and told her she is going to have to stifle if she wants to be First Lady.
If she were out there saying thing like that right now Obama’s polling would be in the single digits.
It’s not Camelot, it’s The Jeffersons(movin’ on up).
I think 'Camel Lot' would be more accurate.
...with apologies to Mel Brooks and the other writers of "History of the World, Part 1"
That's odd...wonder why the Kenyans don't invite bitter Bible-and-gun clingers to their warm and hospitable home?
The return to the White House of an attractive couple with two young children on a tide of idealism placed an impossible burden on both the president and his wife.
A burden that was created by themselves during the campaign. They created the image they couldn't live up to.
She cannot be seen with her usual circle of friends from Chicago...Mrs. Tony Rezco, Bernadette Dohrn etc. for fear of political fallout. That New Yorker cover depicting her as a black radical and Obama dressed as a Muslim was quite true to life.
Barry is not being asked what to do but being told what to do by Michelle, Valerie and Mama Robinson. Santeria and chicken entrails is no way to run a country.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that they are about the least gracious and most self-absorbed couple in the White House in recent memory. They both have boulder-sized chips on their shoulders and personalize every policy difference or perceived slight - you’re either “friend” or “enemy”. No wonder they don’t reach out. The thought probably never crosses their minds.
Obama White House = Sham-alot, Shame-alot, Bam-alot, Dayum-alot, Teleprompt-alot, Ass-alot...
Try as she might, she’s no lady. That woman has the grace and elegance of a bull in a china shop.
I’m no fan of Mrs. Obama but who’d want to hang out in that Washington witches’ coven lead by Sally Quinn and Zsa Zsa Gabor herself. Yuck!
Also, black women - far more even than black men - tend to hang with other black people.
What a bunch of swill.
It’s true. If one just reads between the lines.
The author is quite skilled. It is the most SUGAR COATED CONDEMNATION of Barack and Michelle I have seen.
He even states they are very racist, several times, and gets away with it.
It's good enough for Haiti...
Swill, indeed. Camelot was a fiction.
Things like not hostessing a traditional luncheon for Congressional wives may sound petty, but it can make enemies- and women can hold onto slights a long, long time. I will guarantee that the congressional wives didn't think "Oh, she didn't hold the luncheon so she could spend time with wounded soldiers!" They thought "She didn't hold the luncheon so she could watch a movie and eat popcorn with her female friends!"
It was a slight, and they knew it.
You never know when some slight or little sign of disregard or disrespect will add up to a Congressperson deciding "I don't owe you anything!"
I think she is making enemies, or at the least, not making friends, where she should be.
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